


A Job Going Spare

by Sadbhyl



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-08
Updated: 2011-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen didn’t discover Torchwood by accident…</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Job Going Spare

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: No ulterior motives were harmed in the writing of this story. Any injured copyrights were unintentional
> 
> Notes: Far too many serious discussions and episode analysis went into writing this fic. Thanks to Mydeira for not bitchslapping me when I wrote it first.
> 
> Originally published November 22, 2006

Jack concealed himself to watch the investigation. His team had cleared the site thoroughly, but he had a niggling suspicion he wanted to see play out.

There was nothing special about the police investigators. Three PCs and a DCI carefully combing the ground around the body.

Then one of them bent down. “Found something.”

She wasn’t tall, her eyes enormous even at this distance as she offered a fine barb to her supervisor. There was something in those eyes that caught Jack’s attention, something sharp and discerning.

Her boss wasn’t quite as observant. “So our killer is a hedgehog now, Cooper?” He shoved her arm aside with a sneer. “Don’t bother me unless you’ve got something real.”

Jack watched her face tighten at the slight, but she didn’t say anything until the inspector had moved off. “This is no hedgehog quill,” she said under her voice.

“Well, keep it to yourself,” her partner, a young blond guy, muttered back. “You know how he gets when you challenge him.”

“But Andy, look,” she offered the barb to him. “It’s too long to be from a hedgie, and it’s not hollow. And look,” she pointed to the tip, “see the hook? No hedgehog shed that.”

“What are you going to do?” Andy shrugged. “If Temple says it’s nothing, then it’s nothing. Let it go, Gwen.” With a sad shake of his head, the constable went back to scanning the ground.

Gwen Cooper glared at him as though lumping him in the same category as Inspector Temple. When her eyes shifted back to the Antemarian tail barb in her hand, she seemed to grow more thoughtful. Surreptitiously she bagged it and stuck it in her pocket.

An idea started forming in the back of Jack’s mind.

~

She was already on the scene, rain filling the brim of her little police bowler, a paper cup of coffee in her hand, studying the situation when Ianto pulled the truck in. Jack brushed past her, not looking at her, aware that she was studying them with curiosity and a little anger. Good. Time to see what she could do.

When the team got to the body, Jack buttoned up his jacket and glanced at her. Then he shifted his eyes up to the upper levels of the parking garage before looking back and her and turning to the victim.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her copy the track of his eyes, think for a moment, then slip off into the car park without a word to anyone.

Jack smiled. He hadn’t been wrong about her.

~

 

“A profiler? What the hell do we need a bloody profiler for?”

Jack had expected Owen’s disdain. “Because we keep stumbling around blind when we’re dealing with the human element. A profiler could keep us on track. Maybe save us from making fools out of ourselves like we did last night with John Tucker.”

“But Jack,” Suzie said uncertainly, “she’s an outsider. She doesn’t know about any of this. We at least all had some experience when we came in.”

“I know you did. But there’s something about her.” He knew if he could get Suzie on his side, and Toshiko, Owen would fall into line. “You saw her out there, hours in the rain because she needed answers. What one of us wouldn’t do the same?” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been watching her, Suz. She’s good.” Shifting his attention, he pinned Tosh with an intense look. “She’s perceptive and observant, she’s good with people, and she’s cool in the face of the unknown. Even this afternoon, she tried to talk down that Weevil. Who the hell talks with a Weevil?”

“Most of us know better than to try,” Owen snapped back. “How many times would she get herself killed trying to negotiate with something the rest of us would run from?”

“How many times is that going to happen to her anyway?” He turned to Owen. “It’s not like we’re the only ones who see these things. She’s going to run into them again, especially now that she’s started being aware that there’s something out there. If we have to cover her ass anyway, wouldn’t it be better to do it with her as a teammate?”

“She’s back,” Ianto said casually from his position near the monitors.

Everyone turned to him, then looked back at Jack. “All I’m saying is let’s give her a chance. See how she takes to it. If she runs screaming from the place, we’ll know it won’t work. We’re going to have to clean up after her anyway.”

He saw the doubt on all their faces as they looked to each other, and then settled on Suzie. Her expression turned to resignation. “All right, Jack, have it your way. But don’t make it easy on her. We don’t need a liability.”

Jack grinned. “No, that’s what we have Owen for.”

“Hey now—”

Ruffling Owen’s hair, Jack interrupted. “Here’s what we’re going to do…”

~

The Hub was quiet, just the subharmonic hum of electronics and the constant, irregular drip of water breaking the silence. Everyone had gone home for the night, even Ianto, leaving Jack alone with his thoughts.

He was a little disappointed. It didn’t look like PC Gwen Cooper was coming back. He had thought…well, okay, he had hoped that the little suggestions he had made about her remembering even as he was making her forget would have stuck, planted the seeds that she could actually remember all of this if she wanted to. Maybe he’d been wrong about her after all. Too bad. There was something about her…

Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention. Of all the things he had ever seen pass over that monitor, the sight of Suzie pulling a gun on Gwen was one that he had never expected. His blood froze, all the ramifications suddenly coming clear.

Cursing, he snatched up his greatcoat and ran for the lift, smacking the trigger button and leaping onto its already rising platform. The long seconds as it rose stretched out interminably. Jack didn’t pray. He wouldn’t know who to pray to. But that didn’t keep him from holding his breath and hoping to all things in the universe that he would get there in time.

~

“There’s a job going spare. Do you want it?”

The reasons he gave her, they were all true. They had been from the very beginning. The human element, Gwen with her boyfriend and her compassion and her sense of duty to the world. But when Jack had originally come up with the idea of bringing her on, it had been to help them with the outside world. He hadn’t realize how very far his team had become detached from their own humanity. They needed her, for themselves as much as for the others.

He couldn’t help a sense of relief when at last she answered, a hint of steel in her voice. “I do, yes.”

There might be hope for them yet.


End file.
